Noordhoek Beach

This guide to Noordhoek Beach in Cape Town opens on a January 2018 night attack on a lone tourist, then widens into a decades-long pattern of muggings along this stretch of sand, from Scandinavian visitors robbed in 2004 to a diplomat beaten with a stick. It traces why this particular beach, backed by dune and wetland with nowhere to be seen from the road, keeps drawing trouble, and where the old shipwreck at its far end fits into that history.